The sixth report from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme (SSNAP) data show that six stroke services scored an ‘A’ overall for the quality of care they provide for patients. This is the first time this has been achieved. SSNAP is the first national stroke register in the world to collect information about the entire stroke pathway, from being admitted to hospital to the 6 month follow-up appointment.
SSNAP aims to improve stroke care by measuring the quality of stroke services against evidence based standards and supporting staff to make improvements. SSNAP results are updated every three months, and cover all hospitals treating stroke patients in England and Wales, together with two hospitals in Northern Ireland. It is the most comprehensive and reliable source of information about the performance of stroke services.
The audit is commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP), as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP).
SSNAP is updated and reported on in depth every three months. The report published today relates to patients admitted between April-June 2014 and includes named hospital results for the entire inpatient care pathway (where the numbers of patients entered in SSNAP for this quarter make this viable).
Congratulations to the six services that have scored an ‘A’ overall. This is the first time that this has been achieved. Several more teams would have scored an ‘A’ if they had not been marked down because of issues of case ascertainment and data compliance, both of which are problems that should be fairly easily solvable. What these latest results show is that, although the audit has set the bar very high to achieve the top score, it is achievable and we hope will encourage others to strive to improve.
It is encouraging to see some improvements in the national results for stroke care both the first 72 hours of care and in the standards and processes of care by discharge, since data collection began. The latest set of results, covering patients admitted from 1 April – 30 June 2014, is now available online at the SSNAP Results Portal.
The National Clinical Director for Stroke, Professor Tony Rudd, reports that SSNAP should prove invaluable in helping to shape future developments in stroke care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Without high quality data, improvement in clinical care is unlikely to occur.
Professor Rudd said:
These data are extraordinarily useful to help clinicians resolve problems in their services, the public to be able to understand how their local services are performing and commissioners to know where to direct their attention and resources. We are seeing steady improvements in the quality of care but there are still some services that have a lot of work to do.”
Profess Rudd is also chair of the Intercollegiate Stroke Working Party who oversee the SSNAP.
The quality of data submitted to SSNAP, measured in terms of audit compliance, has also improved each quarter, which is essential in providing meaningful audit results. However, there remains unacceptable variation across the country. SSNAP has moved to absolute measurement of results which means that all teams are capable of showing improvement.
For more information please contact Hannah Bristow on +44 (0)20 3075 1447, or email hannah.bristow@rcalondon.ac.uk
- This report contains complete data for stroke patients admitted to and stroke patients discharged from inpatient care between 1 April and 30 June 2014.
- SSNAP is leading the way in supporting the data transparency agenda and future improvements in stroke care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Transparency and open data is a government initiative that aims to publish information about clinical services and outcomes and so enable patients, staff, academics and others to make informed decisions about healthcare services.
- The SSNAP audit report is available here: SSNAP Results Portal
- There are various visualisation resources to show the latest SSNAP results, including interactive maps (available here) regionalised performance tables, slideshows, and ‘easy access version’ reports for patients, families and carers.
About HQIP, the National Clinical Audit Programme and how it is funded
The Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) is led by a consortium of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, the Royal College of Nursing and National Voices. Its aim is to promote quality improvement, and in particular to increase the impact that clinical audit has on healthcare quality in England and Wales. HQIP holds the contract to manage and develop the National Clinical Audit Programme, comprising more than 30 clinical audits that cover care provided to people with a wide range of medical, surgical and mental health conditions. The programme is funded by NHS England, the Welsh Government and, with some individual audits, also funded by the Health Department of the Scottish Government, DHSSPS Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands. www.hqip.org.uk